5 Learnings to become a true High Performer

It’s 2011, I’m 23, hungry, foolish, a proud member of the 5am club with not much sleep, sitting in front of a white paper with a coffee and one task at hand: What do I want to achieve in 3, 5 and 10 years?

10 years later, I reflect on this piece of paper and now I understand what Mr. Churchill was trying to say to me:

“Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential”

There is quite a big delta between my goals back then and what I actually achieved. Not because there was no progress, but because the process led me somewhere else. I’m not a multi millionaire in a big mansion with several cars and expensive watches.

To be honest, now I feel embarrassed looking on these ego driven, materialistic goals. The process led me somewhere else. I achieved some of my goals after founding my company SportHacks, but there is something I’m much more proud of today: My personality with clear values, more clarity about what is essential to me and what not. I never thought I could develop such a growth mindset. So eager to learn every day (my teachers would be proud).

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong about money. I’m still working hard to achieve financial freedom, but the motivation behind it is different today. The emphasis is on freedom not status.

My key takeaway after 10 years is, that a plan, a vision is crucial, but the process itself is where the magic happens.

Kobe Bryant said in an interview before his tragic death: The process is “the actual dream”.

There were many mistakes I made in that process. When I talk to my fifteen year old nephew I try to share the following five learnings with him.

High performance = progress in balance

Hard work pays. I get it. But now I like to view myself as an essentialist, who thinks it’s much more about smart work, which is even harder than hard work. Sticking to the right habits, making mindful decisions is really hard. Sometimes much harder than sitting 14 hours in front of your computer feeling like you’re working hard. In my opinion it brings you nowhere but to a place where you burn out eventually.

I was close to burning out after 4 years into the startup struggle and this showed me one thing: It’s all about balance. So don’t forget the Yang after the Yin. A high performer like Lebron James invests so much time and over a million USD in recovery.

To get more practical about it: I developed my six core values with a leadership coach. These values reflect what feels important to me and what brings me energy. I reflect every week on whether I’m in sync or not. I don’t want to be perfect in every value, the balance is the key. One value is to “be creative and tell my stories” — last week I felt like neglecting this value, so I scheduled time to write this article.

Try to find a rhythm to reflect on the bigger picture. What gives you energy and what drains your energy? Take responsibility to get in balance again. That’s true self awareness.

What’s essential?

This question is probably the most important one I ask myself every day and probably the best advice I got. Social media, comparisons and therewith my ego dictated my goals. So I got the advice from a wise woman:

“I wish you the ability to distinguish the essential from the unessential”

Or as Nassim Nicolas Taleb would summarize it: signal over noise!

Read the book “Essentialism” from Greg McKeown, which is the bible for that topic.

Time is such a precious resource and I wasted lots of it. But only asking me “What is essential today? What is the one thing?” helped me a lot to prioritize my day. The answer to this question is the first thing I do in the morning after my routine.

But don’t make the same mistake as I did. Sometimes the most essential thing is to take time for your mother, sister, friends or reset with a short trip to a lake.

Don’t forget rule number one: Balance is the key for longterm success and fulfillment.

Hello energy management. Bye bye time management.

I guess I stole that one from Tim Ferriss. Sorry Tim.

Today I focus much more on my energy instead of pushing through to get the planned hours of work in. If you do this too long it’s hard to really listen to your body. Your body is much more intelligent than you think. Just imagine how many processes are functioning at the same time in sync to keep you alive and you don’t even notice. It’s mind blowing.

Get yourself a good tracker and a blood test to recalibrate the feeling for your body without being too obsessed with the data (balance!). I recommend an Oura ring, Apple or Garmin watch or check out the Whoop tracker. Lykon or Cerascreen are good sources for health assessments based on blood tests in Europe. It helps you to understand where you’re really at and what your body really needs.

A key metric is your heart rate variability, which is an indicator for how stressed you are. Your body has two systems reflecting your physical balance. The fight or flight mode (sympathetic) or the rest and digest mode (parasympathetic). This metric shows how they are synced. (yeaaah balance again)

I’m obsessed with habits. I love to test new habits and get rid of bad habits. After lots of testing, I would recommend one thing. Ask yourself the question: What’s the most productive time slot in your day with the most energy? Try to detect that sweet spot and schedule your most essential task in that timeframe. For me it’s 6–10am.

The 10min rule

It sounds simple. But we all face so many distractions every day. Don’t get me wrong — your body will react to these external distractions as they are designed to do so. It’s more or less a no brainer to create an environment without distractions. But that’s not always realistic and sometimes we don’t even want that.

We want to have control, to be in a Zen-like status staying focused in spite of all external triggers. That’s pretty hard, but it is possible to get better at it over time. The best method I found is from Nir Eyal, who wrote a book where he shows how apps are designed to create new habits.

The method is called the 10min rule. Let’s make an example: You procrastinate or you’re not really productive as you feel the need to check your instagram account.

Put your timer on 10min before checking your instagram feed and just feel the emotion and the urge to do that. Stick to it, don’t try to judge it or reject it. What is behind that urge? And what is really essential for you right now?

Just see what happens.

Learn to fall with pride

If I could recommend you only one book, it’s probably Antifragile from Nassim Nicolas Taleb. The key takeaway:

“Learn to fall with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximize trial and error — by mastering the error part.”

It took some time to take my mistakes with pride as I did so many of them. At my lowest point, frustration transformed into confidence understanding this concept. Sometimes you read quotes or hear inspirational advice, but you don’t have a real relationship to that information. When you make the mistake yourself, you will understand what the person was trying to say. The relationship to the information changes and you really get it.

So take action. Don’t fall into the trap of perfectionism which leads to procrastination. I wrote this article in one hour, sent it to 5 friends for feedback and now I just published it despite knowing there are some mistakes (and my english is far from perfect). Done is better than perfect.

But I try to remember Ray Dalio’s formula: Pain + reflection = progress. I’m looking forward to get your feedback and improve. The most important thing for me is that I’m doing it, I’m (pro)active, not reactive and I’m gaining energy as it reflects one of my core values.

This is what I will encourage my nephew to do. Get out there, make a lot of mistakes and try to stay in balance.

Cheers

Till